Australian News

INNER CITY SWINGS AGAIN

Release date:2015-02-26

CENTRAL Melbourne is entering its next golden era, according to leading property and population experts. “The city has transformed,” said senior demographer and partner of KPMG Bernard Salt. “(In the early 20th century) people started migrating away to the suburbs, but then we reached that point when the value proposition of a house on a suburban block started looking less appealing to some people and we are seeing this “swinging back” to the inner city, to a lifestyle you can get in London, in New York, in Paris. “It is an existential shift of our thinking very much underpinned by changes to family, to the jobs market, transport and accessibility. “You cannot walk around the CBD today and not see that change, particularly in the Carlton and Docklands areas.”

The City of Melbourne had 120,196 residents in 2014 and is expected to grow to 124,143 in 2015, according to the City of Melbourne/ Geografia Population Forecast 2014. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures illustrate the municipality’s enormous and rapid population growth. In 2003 it was home to 66,149 people; by 2013 it had grown 76 per cent to 116,431 residents.